Ahern says coalition with SF a no-no

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minster for Defence Willie O'Dea said today Fianna Fáil would not go into coalition with Sinn Féin after the election.

When asked by reporters at the party's arts manifesto launch whether Fianna Fáil form a government with Sinn Féin, Mr Ahern shook his head and said: "No. No".

Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea has said he would rather go into opposition than enter a government with Sinn Féin.

Speaking at a Fianna Fáil press conference in Dublin, Mr O'Dea said the party would discuss numbers on any possible coalition after the May 24th election with "anybody but Sinn Féin".

Minister of State Brian Lenihan, speaking at same press conference, said it was "all to play for" and that he sensed a substantial number of voters who are still undecided.

Mr O'Dea said he had been told by multinational companies in the mid-west that they would "seriously consider" pulling out of the area if Sinn Féin and its stated economic policies gets into government in "any shape or form".

"I'm certainly not going to assist that process," he said.

Asked whether Fianna Fáil would take "external support" from Sinn Féin if in government, Mr O'Dea said the party could not prevent Sinn Féin from going into the government lobby or the Opposition lobby to vote in the Dáil.

But he added: "There will be no understanding, there will be no agreement, there will be no formal agreement with Sinn Féin to support us, or informal agreement with Sinn Féin to support us from outside the government or inside the government or anywhere else, and I don't know how [much] more clearly I can put it."

Mr Lenihan added: "We are not going to put ourselves in a position where they are part of the majority, an essential part of the majority which elects our leader as taoiseach.

"We are not going to put ourselves in that position because we do not believe it is in the national interest of this country.

"And there is a fundamental difference between Northern Ireland and this State. Northern Ireland has compulsory participation in a form of devolved government by all parties. In this State, like-minded parties form blocs to form governments. We don't see them as a like-minded party, and I have to say there is very little enthusiasm within our own ranks to form any kind or arrangement or understanding whatsoever with them."

On crime, Mr O'Dea said he was "proud" of the Government's record on crime. He said Ireland's rate of crime was 24.5 per 100,000 of population. In Scotland, the figure was 54 and in England and Wales it was 86.

But Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe said: "After ten years in power Fianna Fáil's record on crime is dismal. Violent crime has remained consistently around 100,000 incidents a year. Fianna Fáil promised that people would feel safer in their homes. Clearly they do not.

"Fianna Fáil has failed to stop the relentless rise of gangland, which has gone from strength to strength over the last ten years."